UN: FLOODING DEVASTATES SUDAN FARMS

Khartoum, Oct. 3: Record floods in Sudan have affected nearly one third of cultivated land and about three million people from agricultural households, worsening already acute levels of food insecurity, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

The floods have added to hardship in Sudan, already struggling with an economic crisis and one of the world’s highest rates of inflation when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

About 2.2 million hectares of cropland has been flooded and

108,000 head of livestock lost, according to an Food and Agriculture Organisation assessment. Some 1.1 million tonnes of grain was destroyed in planted areas, most of it sorghum, a staple in Sudan, said Dominique Burgeon, a senior Food and Agriculture Organisation official.

Women from some of nearly

600,000 affected agricultural households told the Food and Agriculture Organisation they were cutting down to one small meal per day after their sorghum was washed away just before harvest, he said.

Commercial crops, including bananas and mangos, have also been badly hit. The floods have also destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes and left more than 100 people dead. They have affected about

150,000 refugees and displaced people, the United Nations refugee agency has said.

“It’s a severe situation that needs mobilisation and support from the international community,” Burgeon said.

The United Nations estimates that 9.6 million people face acute food insecurity in Sudan, the highest number on record. Locust swarms that have devastated crops in the Horn of Africa this year also still threaten the country, the Food and Agriculture Organisation says.